Denbigh's 2019
honorary mayor
LION ROSE MARY TORRES
Rose Mary Torres was born in Puerto Rico and raised in the Dominican Republic. At the age of 16, she and her family moved to the United States so that she could attend college. After graduating from college, her first job was at an optical company in NYC. She fell in love with this field of work and in 1991 eventually got her Optician’s license.
Soon after, she met and married her husband, Luis. They have been married for 26 years and have two beautiful daughters. In 2001, the Navy brought them to Newport News where they have since decided to call home.
Living a Navy life required them to separate for long periods of time and move every few years. Because of this, in 2008 she decided to open her own mobile eyeglass business. She has always had a heart for volunteering in the community and this business format allowed her to work around our client’s schedules as well as keep giving back to the community she loves. In 2011, she joined the Newport News Lions Club. Since then, she has served as the club’s Sight Chair and screens applicants and provides eye exams eyeglasses for them. Having the business and the Newport News Lions Club as a platform has allowed her to pursue the best of both worlds.
One day while volunteering at a community event, a woman mentioned that she thought she had a brain tumor because she couldn’t see close anymore. Rose Mary explained that after 40, your eyes lose the ability to focus on objects closer to you. She told the woman she could get an inexpensive pair of glasses from the store and the woman replied “if I had a dollar to my name, I’d have to decide if to eat or see”. The woman’s response tore her heart and she pulled her personal reading glasses from her bag and asked her to try them. The woman’s face lit up, tears fell down her cheeks all because she could see again. She was hooked and knew then that she could make a difference in people’s lives with a single pair of reading glasses. Since then, Rose Mary has given away hundreds of reading glasses, always free of charge.
In 2017 after hurricane Maria struck Puerto Rico, the thought crossed her mind that she can help in the best way she know how. She figured she would fill a backpack with glasses and travel to the island and give them away. But God had a bigger vision. With the support from the Newport News Lions Club, her church and opticians nationwide, she and her husband were able to bring over 800 pairs of custom made reading glasses and dispense them in different cities from coast to coast in a span of 5 days. She considers this mission one of her biggest accomplishments and because of that, she has a new found passion for disaster relief, specifically, areas affected by natural disasters.
In 2018, hurricane Michael devastated the Panhandle coast of Florida leaving most residents destitute. Once again, she and her husband gathered a plentiful supply of reading glasses and distributed them in the hardest hit areas near and around Panama City. This trip lasted only a few days but just as successful.
It has taken her years of patience and trying new things to find her passion in life and her advice to you is this: find your passion and pursue it no matter what obstacles stand in your way. To Rose Mary, there’s no greater reward than that of knowing you are helping someone in their time of need.
“Where are you going to next” is a question she get asked on a regular basis. Her answer: only time will tell but we’d like to be ready to go when the time comes!
Soon after, she met and married her husband, Luis. They have been married for 26 years and have two beautiful daughters. In 2001, the Navy brought them to Newport News where they have since decided to call home.
Living a Navy life required them to separate for long periods of time and move every few years. Because of this, in 2008 she decided to open her own mobile eyeglass business. She has always had a heart for volunteering in the community and this business format allowed her to work around our client’s schedules as well as keep giving back to the community she loves. In 2011, she joined the Newport News Lions Club. Since then, she has served as the club’s Sight Chair and screens applicants and provides eye exams eyeglasses for them. Having the business and the Newport News Lions Club as a platform has allowed her to pursue the best of both worlds.
One day while volunteering at a community event, a woman mentioned that she thought she had a brain tumor because she couldn’t see close anymore. Rose Mary explained that after 40, your eyes lose the ability to focus on objects closer to you. She told the woman she could get an inexpensive pair of glasses from the store and the woman replied “if I had a dollar to my name, I’d have to decide if to eat or see”. The woman’s response tore her heart and she pulled her personal reading glasses from her bag and asked her to try them. The woman’s face lit up, tears fell down her cheeks all because she could see again. She was hooked and knew then that she could make a difference in people’s lives with a single pair of reading glasses. Since then, Rose Mary has given away hundreds of reading glasses, always free of charge.
In 2017 after hurricane Maria struck Puerto Rico, the thought crossed her mind that she can help in the best way she know how. She figured she would fill a backpack with glasses and travel to the island and give them away. But God had a bigger vision. With the support from the Newport News Lions Club, her church and opticians nationwide, she and her husband were able to bring over 800 pairs of custom made reading glasses and dispense them in different cities from coast to coast in a span of 5 days. She considers this mission one of her biggest accomplishments and because of that, she has a new found passion for disaster relief, specifically, areas affected by natural disasters.
In 2018, hurricane Michael devastated the Panhandle coast of Florida leaving most residents destitute. Once again, she and her husband gathered a plentiful supply of reading glasses and distributed them in the hardest hit areas near and around Panama City. This trip lasted only a few days but just as successful.
It has taken her years of patience and trying new things to find her passion in life and her advice to you is this: find your passion and pursue it no matter what obstacles stand in your way. To Rose Mary, there’s no greater reward than that of knowing you are helping someone in their time of need.
“Where are you going to next” is a question she get asked on a regular basis. Her answer: only time will tell but we’d like to be ready to go when the time comes!